


The Contract

by Heylir



Category: Widdershins (Webcomic)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 10:41:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18737398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heylir/pseuds/Heylir
Summary: A small routine episode from the malform busters' life, with two spring moments added.Spoilers for two scenes ofCurtain Call.





	The Contract

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Контракт](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15685356) by [Heylir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heylir/pseuds/Heylir). 



> This translation was made by the author. I'd be grateful to be informed about typos and mistakes found, in order to fix them.
> 
> Disclaimer: The first part is based on one entry from _The Malform Guide_. The second part is two retold scenes from _Curtain Call_.

    The door of the next bedroom slammed, and languid footsteps shuffled down the stairs. Wolfe put his book aside and reached for his violin. Now he could do a lot of practice, without the fear of waking up Mal.  
    But before Wolfe could complete the first exercise, he heard some strange sounds and lowered his bow. There were muffled Mal’s baritone and Ben’s tenor shouting from below, but he couldn’t make out the words.

    “Ye’re always makin’ a fuss over every trifle!”  
    “And you are incapable of understanding these things! You do nothing and hence doesn't respect other’s efforts!”  
    “Oi! Th’hell does that mean, I do nothin’? All yer business depends on m’ eyes only! Without me, yer gonna broke or break yer neck in a week!”  
    “Oh, some ego you have! Do you think it gives you the right to make all the mischief you want?”  
    “I told ye already, s’not me!”  
    “Why, certainly! ‘It’s not me, it’s a buggerup’. Do you take me for a perfect idiot or what?”  
    “I wish ye were! S’not too bad, t’ live wi’ idiots! Wi’ such pompous pains in th’ ass like ye, I’d rather die!”  
    There was a pause as constrained as silence before a thunderclap, and Wolfe took several steps down in a hurry. Both debaters turned their heads to him as one. Mal waved to Wolfe as if nothing had happened, but Ben swallowed hard and adjusted his neckerchief.  
    “Fine,” he said, his tone lowered. “Great. Simply perfect.” Ben took his wallet from a drawer and put it in the inside pocket of his jacket. Then he came to the footwear rack, put on his shoes and said to no one in particular, “I’ve some things to do. On the way back I’ll go to the shop. If clients come, you know the procedure.” With these words, he went out, closing the door too carefully.  
    Mal snorted after him, muttered “Pshaw” and slumped down in a chair. He rolled a cig, spilling half of the tobacco on his lap, and lit it.  
    “Today it is louder than usual,” Wolfe said calmly, putting his violin on the table.  
    Mal shrugged, “A lot o’ shoutin’ over nothin’, th’ same old stuff.” He drew on his cig and looked grimly out of the window as if he hoped to see something besides loathsome street lamps and the roadway. “Mebbe, t’ France after all?”  
    “You say that every week,” Wolfe smiled.  
    “Now I mean it,” Mal sighed wearily. “I’m sick of ‘is crap. Ye gotta wake up bloody early, almost at eleven, run about like hell, risk yer neck — an’ fer what, bein’ yelled at?”  
    He was going to flick the ashes on the floor, but Wolfe beat him to it with a tin ashtray.  
    “It is not always easy for Ben to work with us, too,” he said simply.  
    “So, that’d be better fer everyone,” Mal retorted. “Talk with ‘im about th’ contract, in yer nice way, ey?”  
    “It is not the contract that is the matter,” Wolfe shook his head.  
    “Wotsit then?”  
    “Why did he get angry?” Wolfe asked, instead of answering.  
    “His precious notes got ink-spilt all over ‘em, and ‘e believes it’s me. Dunno why. I told ‘im it must be an Irritation buggerup, they like makin’ petty mischief.”  
    Wolfe smiled a little, “But he didn't believe you, did he?”  
    “Nah,” Mal scratched his cheek ruefully with his forefinger. “Ye've ‘eard ‘is shouts.”  
    “I will be upset, too, if my sketch album gets ruined,” Wolfe said gently.  
    “Not th’ same,” Mal winced. “Yer “upset” and his yellin’.”  
    “But you have known Ben, have not you?” Wolfe stopped smiling. “So you knew how he would react at that.”  
    Mal gloomily crushed out his cigar end in the ashtray.  
    “I didn’t want t’ make _that_ ,” he muttered. “I was jus’ gonna daub somethin’ on the margin, fer fun. Th’ inkwell was toppled over, tha’s all. But ‘e wasn’t gonna believe me, he’d have thought I lied. So I did, t’ make ‘im right.”  
    He reached into a pocket, got out the paper with the scraps of tobacco and cursed weakly: “Damnit, hardly fer one cig. Th’ day starts bloody well...”  
    “Ben is going to go to the shop, he said so. He will buy some tobacco.”  
    “Th’ hell he will, now. Fat chance,” grunted Mal. “OK, I’ll go myself. Later.”  
    He put his head back on the chair and glanced at the violin. “Play somethin’.”  
    Wolfe took the instrument without a word. He moved his bow across the strings as if in repeating movements of the other violinist that was visible only to Mal. He lowered his eyelids as usual, but even through his half-closed eyelashes, he could see these colours, happy and calm like the violin’s voice, like Wolfe’s...  
    The music snatched him up and carried him away at large, out of the close walls, far beyond the daily routine with boring “you must” and “you must not”... there were only him, Wolfe and a neverending road that they could walk along all their life...

    The lock clanked, the door opened, but Wolfe didn’t break a note. Ben came in, trying not to make a noise, changed his shoes quietly and stood still near the wall, either listening to the music or just waiting for Wolfe to finish it.  
    “Any visitors?” he asked when the violin fell silent.  
    “No,” said Wolfe.  
    Ben nodded and went to the kitchen. Wolfe glanced at Mal, put his violin away and followed Ben.

    He came back soon, with a hardly suppressed smile twitching his lips.  
    “Here!” he deftly tossed a new packet of tobacco to Mal. He caught it and turned it over and over in his hands, looking for some catch. “Also Ben has said to tell you he makes his own commission to desummon that malform. The one that meddles with his things.”  
    Mal tore up the cover and looked up at Wolfe doubtfully:  
    “’e really said that?”  
    Wolfe nodded, “Word for word. I shall talk with him about the contract later, all right?”  
    Mal turned his head towards to window. He watched fallen leaves, whipped by the chill wind in swirls, — soon they’ll cover all the roadway and make it pleasant to walk over it. To crunch and kick them, to gape at buggerups passing by and to come back into the warmness of ho...  
    “Autumn.” He shivered a bit and hugged himself. “Rains and slush, bad roads, th’ winter’s comin’. Let’s wait fer th’ sprin’. It’s exactly th’ time when th’ contract ends.”  
    “If you want to,” Wolfe replied and took his violin again. At sounds of it, Ben looked out of the kitchen.

_One spring day._

    “Everyone I know is better than me! You, Vee, Wolfe, even O'Malley!” The feeling had been locked up too long, and now it was growing through, getting strength and power, till it broke loose at last, tearing the walls of its prison to pieces. The unstoppable, sweeping aside everything before it, flow smashed into the big mirror — it rang pitifully, swelling up with cracks, and Pride gave an indignant, ear-splitting screech.  
    His triumph and battle rage overcame his pain. The enemy suffered worse, as it was struck with an invisible but deadly sword. It didn’t matter that Ben had to hold the sharp blade with his bare hands. All he could think then was: _don’t stop, fight it, fight, fight till final victory..._  
    Bright colours blurred before Ben’s eyes so he couldn’t make out anything, and someone’s hands grabbed him from behind and carried him away, with him allowing it and keeping his eye on Pride, and holding his sword tight, and shouting, shouting in the full force of his voice and soul: “I have no friends! Only people who are obligated to be around me!”

*       *       *

    Waves of hostile power washed against Mal, and he felt their pressure, with all his witch senses.  
    If it were somewhere else, not behind _his Door_ , how badly would his poor head hurt! But he was protected with double armour of his nature and knew the enemy wouldn’t make him succumb, neither to temptation nor to force.  
    Still, this power, that flooded all Space-Between and captured Harry, scared Mal. The more cheekily and self-confidently he behaved so as not to show that to the enemy, not to falter, not to miss the aim at a crucial moment.  
    He stared at the Lust’s face defiantly. In a normal vision, it would look like a normal man. But Mal could see that it had no outer spirit thing, because it was a spirit itself, only dressed in human form. How did it manage that?..  
    “Do you know what makes me different to the other spirits?” Lux asked casually, glancing at Mal.  
    “Ye don’t shut up?” he made a guess.  
    Lux chuckled and gave the answer itself:  
    “I spent a lot of time in human form. More than most humans, in fact. For a few hundred years I walked among you, watching and learning.” Its voice grew more persuasive. “And of course, someone with your gifts has an idea of the chaos I saw.”  
    “Aye,” burst out from Mal, and right now he regretted that. You must not! You must not listen to it, must not agree with it. “But...”  
    Lux didn’t appear to notice anything and turned away, going on with his blathering:  
    “So many conflicting emotions. No clarity, just confusion. And your relationships with each other, well... that was the worst of it by far.”  
    He must put a stop to it, and quickly. While Lux was looking the other way, Mal stretched a blue-white lump of his power between his palms.  
    “I were right,” he said sullenly. “Ye definitely don’t shut up.”  
    “Glib,” grinned Lust, and his voice got deliberately persuasive again. “You may have no interest in what I have to offer, but you still cling to others. To ‘friends’,” Mal heard scornful quotes in his tone plainly, “to ‘family’,” the scorn increased, “to ‘love’.” The last word sounded almost obscene. “Your Mr Wolfe and Mr Thackerey, yes?”  
    Mal’s hands flinched, and the blue flame died with a hiss.


End file.
